Plastics-material strips of integrally interconnected bands have been used in the prior art to form packages of selected numbers of containers, and various machines and methods have been developed for application of the strips to groups or rows of containers with the bands of the strips encircling the containers. In the prior art there are many more plastics-material multipackaging devices or carriers than there are applicating machine developments or designs for applying the carriers to containers. Thus, while the configuration of a particular prior art carrier device may be meritorious, more often than not it has added little to the art or science of multipackaging because of the absence in the art of a method and machine for applying such a carrier device. Those skilled in this art will understand that the multipackaging devices or carriers that have made the greatest contribution to the art have been those carrier designs which have been the impetus for successful applicating machine and packaging system developments. A series of such carrier designs began with the original developments of a Mr. Ougljesa Jules Poupitch, see U.S. Pat. No. 2,874,835. Mr. Poupitch's patents were assigned to the Illinois Tool Works Inc. of Chicago, Illinois and various engineers of that company have continued his work. That series of carrier designs led to the successful development of two basic types of now commercially successful applicating machines, one which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,383,828 and the other being described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,032,943 and 3,032,944. The present commercial models of those carriers and machines which are being used on a worldwide basis, for primarily the multipackaging of cans into six-packs, represent the present state of the subject art. In those machines, a plurality of pins or jaw elements positively control the stretching and application of each band of the carrier to the individual containers.